Indie ISPs Fight for Survival

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Indie ISPs Fight for Survival

WASHINGTON – Scams, spam, security, speed and survival – those are the issues under discussion this week at ISPCon, a trade show primarily for independent Internet service providers.

Independent ISPs feel that their best chance of business survival on an Internet that is increasingly being served by a few giant ISPs is to offer personalized, localized customer service. They are focused on finding ways to squash spam and protect their users from e-mailed scams and viruses, but aren't able to hire a battalion of technicians to battle spam like the big ISPs do.

Many of the ISPs attending ISPCon this week in Washington, D.C., offer only dialup access, and say their customers are hit particularly hard by spam – "imagine having to download all that garbage you get every day ... slowly," said Rich Wong, general manager of the anti-abuse division at Openwave Systems. Wong will be delivering a keynote speech on spam fighting for small ISPs at ISPCon.

Independent ISPs are also very interested in figuring out ways to offer speedier dialup service, since recent FCC rulings have allowed cable companies and local telephone service providers to refuse indy ISPs access to DSL or cable lines.

Dialup acceleration vendors Artera, ByteMobile, Propel, Proxyconn, Nuvio and Slipstream are touting their speed-it-up services here with great enthusiasm, and it's almost enough to convince broadband users to dust off the old 56K modem to see how fast it can really go.

The accelerators compress incoming data, fine-tune connection settings and cache frequently used data from often-visited sites, making Web pages and files such as MP3s download on average of two to three times faster than they normally would over a dialup connection. These acceleration products have been effective enough to allow some small ISPs to tout their dialup service's speed.

"The success and popularity of FasterMac.net continues to exceed our expectations, and our TurboMac accelerated product, which truly gives DSL-like browser performance over a standard dialup connection, is wowing new customers every day," said Larry O'Connor, president and founder of Otherworld Computing, which offers the nation's only Mac-targeted dialup service. FasterMac claims its service is six times faster than standard dialup.

But even the fastest dialup connection still bogs down when faced with an influx of spam. How to offer the latest antispam technologies – as well as antivirus protection – is another concern of independent ISPs, which can't afford to have an entire division devoted to fending off unwanted marketing and malicious software. Sadly, there seems to be no real solution to this problem as yet, beyond educating users about viruses and scams.

ISPs big and small have recently focused on preventing "phishing" schemes, the fraudulent e-mail messages that purport to come from a user's bank, ISP or online business such as eBay or PayPal.

The e-mails attempt to convince recipients that there is a problem with their account that can only be fixed if users provide their private financial, personal or other account information by entering it into a Web form. The form looks legitimate, even the URL that users are directed to appears to be part of a known business site, but the information is actually being delivered directly to criminals.

For the most part, smaller ISPs hope that their hands-on approach to customer support will shield their users from phisher scams. And on Monday, any Internet users (provided they are using Microsoft's Internet Explorer to browse the Internet) will be able to download EarthLink's free ScamBlocker software.

With ScamBlocker, users will be warned about accessing known or suspected phisher sites and will be redirected to an EarthLink-generated Web page that provides additional information about phishers and similar online scams and what actions subscribers can take to further protect themselves.

"Annoying spam about lower mortgage rates and herbal remedies has evolved into some very dangerous scams that aim to steal financial and personal information from unsuspecting Internet users," said Kevin Brand, vice president of product management for EarthLink. "Until these websites are legally shut down, this scam-blocking tool is the best technological solution available to protect consumers against these criminal spammers."

Small ISPs are also worried about protecting themselves. On March 31, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco denied an FCC request for a full-court review of its decision in Brand X Internet Services v. FCC, an October 2003 decision stating that Internet connections by cable companies are telecommunications services. However, on April 9, the court agreed to stay the decision until June 30 to give the FCC time to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The decision now under review would have meant cable companies would be required to provide independent ISPs access to their networks at reasonable prices.

In response, Jim Pickrell, president of Brand X Internet Services, is asking ISPs and customers to join together to fight for open, nondiscriminatory access to existing broadband networks through the newly established National Internet Alliance.

"I am hopeful that the FCC will do the right thing," said David Robertson, president of the Texas ISP Association, and who will chair the first meeting of the alliance. "But I'm certain that the cable companies will fight to keep their systems closed.

"They don't want competition from independent Internet providers, and why should they? If a consumer today wants high-speed Internet service, the cable company doesn't have to worry very much about the quality or price of its service – there is no other high-speed game in town."

The first meeting of the National Internet Alliance, and other highlights from ISPCon, will be broadcast online for those who can't attend the event.

ISPCon runs through April 16 at the Washington Hilton and Towers in Washington.